Late 2022 was a hard year for a lot of folks. My good friend since 2014 sent word that he was laid off from his full-time job as a Marketing Manager. But he took it as an opportunity to put everything into something he had been wanting to do for years but never had the time to – open his own wine shop. With no time to waste he asked if I was interested in doing branding for it.
For this phase, I did a mini-competitive analysis of brands and shops that were local to the area to see what they were doing, how they looked, and tried to find filters in a way that made sense. Here I filtered and scaled it by level of expression, from brands that felt very grounded and natural like LoLo, to the very futuristic, minimal or type-driven brands like Post Familiar. As we moved through phases, we pulled tonality from Sketchy, the P from Vintage Modern, and tied in colors from both.
Overview.
While working at Microsoft, I worked as a Comms and Visual Design Lead on the Enterprise Commercial CTO team (ECCTO). Here I was responsible for sending out major comms for one of Microsoft's CTO, Lorraine Bardeen, as well as all other comms work internally for presenting to client . Here I was given the opportunity to explore a brand logo and brand
ANATOMY.
We like to believe we’re soft yet firm, so we’ve rounded out to corners a bit throughout the logo’s apex. 2. The top of the t is reduced and chopped to create a “signal”, following the natural 18° angles in the font Segoe.
EXTENDED.
The ECCTO logo should be used primarily with a color signal in the yellow color specified. A solid black or white version can be used in a secondary context.
Expressive.
In special circumstances, you can use icon imagery to replace the signal. This is best done sparingly, with clear intent and purpose to celebrate an occasion, value, or achievement meaningful to ECCTO.
Color.
ECCTO’s visual language uses a spectrum of color combined into light and dark gradients and broken out into tonal color families. We also use a range of tonal black + grey to support this system.
Colors Applied.
ECCTO’s color palette features gradients that work well as backgrounds and washes utilizing colors that represent clarity, innovation, and leadership. These washes work well as backgrounds or as section dividers. The “light angle” featured in these washes is 18°, which is the same as the angle of the signal in the ECCTO logo.
Illustration.
the illustration language for ECCTO pulling features directly from the logo including the 18° angle, as well as honing key-characteristics in illustrations in the “signal” yellow